New Interview with Gaim head writer Gen Urobuchi
 

A recently-translated interview with Gaim head writer Gen Urobuchi has just surfaced online, and provides several new and insightful details about the production of Gaim- and some key hints at the future of our favorite Orange Armored Rider!

*How was it when you first started this job?

Producer Takebe suddenly called me. I was very surprised at the beginning, they’d been planning Gaim for half a year already. I had no idea they worked so fast on tokusatsu.

*What had been decided when you finally got the job?
The belt design and the transformation concept. At that point only Banana and Grape were finalized, I was also told that they were aiming for multiple Riders.

*What’s your personal experience with Kamen Rider?
I never watched the early Riders as they aired, until Black came out. I’d never miss an episode of Black. I still watch the newer Riders sometimes.

*What are some troubles you’ve had so far?
It has to be the motif. Just look at the two previous Riders, an astronaut and a wizard. You could easily make a hero out of these things, but an orange? From the start, I had to work with something that’s not heroic at all. That was my mistake though, I saw it as a fruit. I realized I had to see it as a toy. A human finds this strange belt and plays around with it like nothing, and then slowly build around the revealing that it’s something greater than just a toy. It’s gonna become more Rider-like, slow but steady.

*What were some troubles you had with the beginning then?
Gaim was delayed one month, and started in October. This is because the power up item would clash with the first set of toys during Christmas. This meant I couldn’t introduce new items and characters until after that point.

*How did you create the characters?
I knew how I wanted the characters to be once they’ve finally grown up, so I worked backwards from that. I had to think real hard how to show they’d grow up in the best way possible. All of this will of course be covered in the first half of Gaim.

*What is your vision of a hero?
Someone that influences goodness in other people. There’s also the sense of justice, but the whole justice thing won’t appear until episode 14. From there it will be a story about justice, finally becoming a Rider story.

He worked backwards for character development? That actually sounds pretty smart. Anyway, this was a really interesting interview.

So what kind of 'justice' are we talking about here? I could see Baron going on the line of 'revenge justice' for what the Corporation has done while Gaim is the 'protection justice'.

I really hope they don't switch writers mid-season. I've been paranoid about that since Episode 3.

I like interviews like this. Having to view it as a toy and learning gradually that the belt is not a toy is an interesting anecdote. And we can see that he's excuting well on that in the series so far.

I'm curious too. I wonder what brand of justice we'll see the writers give Gaim himself. Like you said, Baron's seems more in terms of retribution for all the ruined lives, but I don't know what Gaim's would be like.

If this guy goes Gaim is dead to all of us.

...what planet have you been on? Did you even read the article? He is doing Gaim and has been doing it since the beginning.

Also, I find it incredibly amusing that Gaim was delayed so the Genesis Driver, etc. would be released after Christmas so the Sengoku Driver could sell at Christmas!

Just evidence that toys > everything else.

Naturally. :lol

What I find really impressive is how Mr Urobuchi works around the limitations from the need to sell toys and crafts a story that makes sense around them. This guy has really put some good work into the story-telling.

It is pretty amazing considering he states in the interview that he has no real care/interest in the "fruit gimmick", only that he has to write around it.

That's right, and boy did he find a way to justify it.

I agree exactly, he is telling one of the most interesting stories I've seen.

I hope in this episode they drop the whole Armor Rider thing and Gaim or Baron Declares himself A Kamen Rider

It's unlikely that this will happen. In all of Heisei, this has only happened three times - Blade, Hibiki, and Decade, and with Decade it was a planned change.

Although the tone of Butcher isn't specifically stated, this was a surprisingly negative interview with him complaining about the fruit motif and how he had to write around it, and how he is a slave to toy release dates.

He's obviously found ways to make it work, and make it work well, but there are clearly aspects to tokusatsu which we play off as jokes, which are actually big deals to those who have to deal with them while trying to tell their story.

i like how they released the genesis driver before it debuted, so kids that have it, it gets them interested on how it's used on the show, plus drives more viewers.

I didn't get so much negativity as I did forthrightness.

I mean, he never says that he doesn't like the fruit motif -- he just says that making fruit heroic was a particular challenge, for which he eventually found an interesting, story-based solution. In fact, the whole series ends up circling the theme he created to justify using fruit. The fruit theme becomes integral to the narrative -- meaning Gaim wouldn't be Gaim without the fruit motif and the themes it generates.

All in all, I think the challenge forced him to be more creative, and we get a better end product as a result. It would be hard for me to believe he doesn't recognize that as well.

Urobuchi is not being negative, he's explaining how life gave him an orange and he made orange juice with it. :D

Yes I've read the article just a what if.

So the Genesis Driver gave us those two episodes of Wizard.

Onore Shin-Zangetsu!!!!

That's actually pretty dissapointing.

He compares Gaim's fruit gimmick to Fourze and Wizard's being an astronaut and wizard being easy to make into heroes, while "fruit" isn't. But, well, that's not true. Their gimmicks are switches and rings, their motifs are an astronaut and wizard. Gaim's gimmick is fruit, but the motif is different warriors from different eras.

He seems... incredibly short-sighted to the gimmick, acting like it's some great barrier to storytelling. A good writer would see this as a challenge to make an orange something heroic, not scoff at it. Bugs are pretty unheroic, but Kamen Rider consistenly makes those heroic. Besides, Gaim isn't an orange, he's a person. Dressed as a Samurai coloured orange.

It actually really hurts my opinion of him. It just makes him seem so narrow-minded and unmotivated. Some people complain that people in interviews are too optimistic, but Gen here almost sounds like he's complaining. Rather than say something uplifting like "It's a challenge I look forward to tackling" or some such, he's basically saying "I don't like it an I'm trying to ignore it/work around it." That's like a Transformers writer thinking the idea of them transforming into cars in stupid.

He also complains about toys dominatng the direction of the narrative. Well, what did he expect? That's kind of the name of the game.

It seems more like life gave him an orange, and he just sort of left it on the table.

I couldn't disagree more.

The part where he says he realized he needed to view the fruit as toys makes me think he came to the exact same conclusion you mentioned above. That it's the gimmick, not the heroic element.

That said, he absolutely has woven the fruit gimmick into the theme of the story -- in fact, it seems to have greatly informed the direction of the story as well.

Gaim is about how kids romanticize adulthood, but when they confront the reality of adulthood they are horrified by the sacrifices they must make. The fruit gimmick, in this case, actually has a thematic purpose (unlike switches, rings, and medals which don't represent anything more than a Bandai toy line mandate). The kids naively play with these fruit-toys just as they play with the notion of adulthood, and just as they discover that adulthood is more horrifying than they excepted, they discover that the fruit-toys have similarly insidious implications.

This adds more fuel to the fire that Urobuchi has a more sophisticated storytelling style than almost anyone who's worked on KR since its Heisei revival. Unlike other writers, he didn't just thoughtlessly thrust the idea of the collectible gimmick out there. Instead, he took the time and effort to imbue the gimmick with meaning -- and make it reflect the most important themes of the story.

Oh yeah, don't think that I don't think he's handled the gimmick incredibly well. Gaim is just great.

It's just depressing to know how... unexcited he seemed. You'd think a show with so much care and attention to detail was brought about by an intense passion for the subject matter, not a half-dismissive mindset.

The final product is awesome, don't get me wrong.

I think he will be more happy if it is a late night show.

I don't know why so many people see this as just Urobotchi complaining, when he was just answering the questions the interviewer gave him :confused:

He was asked what troubles he might have had and he replies that it was hard at first to make fruits into a heroic concept(and lets face it, a lot of Kamen Rider fans were dismissive of it themselves because of the fruit motif) but he worked around it. He was then asked what troubles he had in the begining and he mentioned the fact that the show was delayed because of toys.

If he brought these up on his own I could understand but I read it as him being more neutral than actively hatting the gimmick.

Because rather than merely say they're a challenge, he points out out he doesn't care for them, and makes inaccurate comparrisons.

Ah, I gotcha.

It's kind of hard for me to gauge his tone from these snippets. There's so much formality in Japanese interviews, so it could be that his enthusiasm wasn't accurately conveyed because of those stoic cultural strictures. Not to mention, the translation is subject to the translator's interpretation, which may not be 100% in line with Urobuchi's intent.

Basically -- there are so many filters on his statements, it's kind of difficult for me to determine how he really feels. The passion and enthusiasm is clear in the work -- and at the end of the day, a writer generally wants the work to speak for him.

I don't think we have to worry about disinterest on his part -- Urobuchi is a great writer, but no writer is good enough to make something this fresh and compelling and heartfelt if he doesn't really care about the material.

So Black is his favorite series, huh? That is awesome. Sure, he did not say that out right, but since he said it was the only series he made sure to watch every episode to, it must be his favorite.

Anyway, good interview, but I know next to nothing of the guy's past credits, so I only have this series to base off his work, which has been quite good thus far.

I don't know, from the interview I found him kind of neutral on the fruit gimmick. He merely said he didn't understand it. He even said it was his mistake for seeing it as just fruit.